This transcript was produced using AI and it may contain errors.

It's very nice to be back with you this morning. I think something has happened to your pew bibles. The print has inexplicably gotten smaller since the last time I used one of them here. I don't know what that could be. Probably global warming. I talked this morning about a tale of two sons from the account we just read in Genesis. Let's start by asking you a question. Did you know that there are hundreds, some count say, over 1700 words and phrases that we owe in our English language to the writings of Shakespeare? As a very influential writer, if you've ever heard or said that something was a fool's paradise or that something was a dish fit for a king or all that glitters is not gold or as luck would have it or a plague on both of your houses, maybe every election, those are just some of the hundreds of phrases that have become everyday expressions that we use when we speak that owe their origins to the brilliant mind of Shakespeare. You think about the plays of Shakespeare, the vast expanse of human behaviors and interactions that he depicts. Kind of makes sense that those phrases would stick with us. But our English Bible has given us many more objectively and certainly more meaningful phrases that we also use every day, but they're so commonplace in English we don't even recognize that they come from the Bible anymore. Did you ever say that something was a thorn in your side or there was a fly in the ointment or that someone didn't say eye to eye? Or you hear a story about some horrible tragedy and you say the voices of the victims are crying out. Every time we do that we're using an expression from the English, our English Bible. And this particular story in Genesis 4, more than even any of the great plays of Shakespeare, communicates to us so powerfully such important primal messages that are universal to all people that it's not surprising that as we read this story out loud your brains were no doubt picking up many of the common expressions that we use when we speak English because they come from this story. Did you ever say that someone was raising Cain? That's from Genesis 4. You ever hear the voices of the victims cry out? From Genesis 4. Did you ever say am I my brother's keeper? See this story echoes down through the millennia to us and it resonates with us because the themes are so fundamental, they're so basic and universal, so essential to our understanding of what it needs to be human. That we're not even consciously aware but this story has changed the way we even speak our language. Let me try to explain to you why I think that is by looking at it under four headings. First of all I want to give us some family background to the characters that we see here. Our text opens with a very simple phrase Adam knew Eve. It's a simple phrase but it tells us so much about the nature of their relationship. Tells us about the mutual interdependence of the sexes. That Eve comes from Adam and that Adam sees Eve and that she's suitable for him. That he sees in her another part of himself that they are complete and together and one. I did a wedding yesterday afternoon for a young couple and in the language of the wedding ceremony which is so familiar to us we're reminding the couple that they are becoming one. Forsaking all others. Of course we know that the expression is a euphemism. When it says that Adam knew Eve it means that they were to have children in nine months. But I think it also means so much more it tells us that they understood each other, that they knew each other, that they he knew that he was not her and she was not him, that he was a man and she was a woman and yet the two of them together are more than the sum of the parts. Also we look at the story the background of the family that we see the names of the two boys. Cain means to acquire or to get. Eve said I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord or I've gotten a man from the Lord. Abel means breath, means vapor. Reminds us that not only is he a living spirit that the the breath of God has come into him and he's alive but it also as the scriptures tell us later that what is our life but a vapor. The boys were raised by the same two parents, they're raised in the same family and they have no external influences. That's an important point for us because as parents we are very often susceptible to the temptation to blame outside influences on our children's behaviors and choices and sins. We can't look at the story of Cain and Abel and say that he spent too much time playing video games. We cannot read the story and think if only his parents had had a higher level of parental controls on the internet. If only he didn't see those R rated movies, if only there wasn't violence, if all of those things were not present then he surely would have turned out completely different. Secondly I want us to see that Cain and Abel also have the same career path. They come in the same family of origin, they grow up together, they have the same experiences, they have the same influence from their parents, they're limited in their outside experience. Then Adam was a farmer. Adam raised both flocks as we know and crops. He has sons. These two which are named here in this story, these sons have the specialization, there's a division of labor. The economy is already sophisticated in Genesis 4. Cain grows crops. He's a settled farmer. He lives in one place and his fields surround his place where he dwells and storage buildings and he grows his crops and he lives there but his brother Abel raises sheep which means he's a nomadic herder. He travels from place to place so that his flocks can graze on the available grasslands as he moves from place to place. And anthropologists who study human civilization say that there are three fundamental types. There's a hunter-gatherer where people simply subsist on what they can find and what they can catch. There's the nomadic society which moves from place to place to follow the fish or follow the buffalo or follow whatever their primary crop is. But what we call civilization is a settled farm where crops are grown in the same field for generations, where buildings become more permanent and as many historians believe, most importantly, grain is collected and turned into beer. All of the sudden people are in the same place and taxes can be collected and public works can be accomplished and lands can be drained and water can be brought in for irrigation and taxes are collected and the cities develop and all of the things that we call civilization begin. Our text is not exhaustive. You should remember that when we're reading the scriptures that the the narrative texts do not tell us every single detail. They're not a biographical details of every character and everything that happens and every exchange and interaction but what it does tell us is relevant to the lesson that the Holy Spirit wishes us to learn. It gives us the details that are necessary to teach us what the point is. So several things are assumed in this text. I'll just state them. It's assumed that there's a lot more people already on the earth. It's assumed that they were already married, at least came. And at this point in their lives they are outwardly successful. Next I want us to see that they have the same outward worship. They come from the same families, they they have the same career path and they outwardly worship the same. They both brought a sacrifice to God. I noticed that the sacrifice is not commanded in the text. The first time we find detailed instructions about the sacrifices of the time of the patriarchs with Abraham and then we have exhaustive details given to Moses. But here we have no information about a command to sacrifice. There's only two possibilities. It's not a command or the command or the command is assumed. I think given the example of God himself and the sacrifice he did for Adam and Eve that we can say that the command is assumed and that worship flows naturally from the work that we do as humans. Worship is naturally part of what it means to be human. You know if we try to study from an anthropological textbook what makes us human, right? It's the Homo sapiens sapiens. We're the human race. We're the Homo erectus. We're the people that walk upright. But I think perhaps a more philosophical answer is we are the people who think or we are the people who worship because what distinguishes human beings from all of the rest of creation is that we worship something. Even atheists worship something. All human beings worship either our own intellect or a belief in progress or a belief in the inevitability of scientific discovery or the belief in the scientific process, the forces of nature, probably the predominant religion in Canada today. We all worship something. We all believe that there is something that transcends ourselves and our own existence. So Kate and Abel come to worship. Outwardly they do the same thing. They're both farmers and so they both bring something that they have produced to give to God. Outwardly it seems the same. Sometimes people might say and I've heard it said that Cain, it's kind of capricious of God, Cain just brought of his crops and nobody had told him he had to bring a lamb. This is a sophisticated economy. Abel does not subsist solely by eating lamb and mutton. He also eats bread. He also drinks the beer that comes from his brother's grave. His brother doesn't eat only vegetables. He also eats the cheese. He also wears the wool of his brother's flocks. There's a sophisticated economic transaction which is already occurring. He's not limited by what he grows. He could have traded. But the difference we see later is internal and not external. Notice how it describes what Cain's offering was. It says he brought some of what he had. Interesting qualifier. It's like he just went in and scooped up some and brought it out. Especially when we contrast what it says of Abel. Did you notice the difference? He brought of the first born of his flock of the fat portions. He brought the best. He evaluated what he had and he selected what was better to give to God. Cain looked at what he had and he said I'll give some. Calvin says of this text that Cain's offering was not of faith. And I think he's correct. That the outward act and the way that it's described reveals the inward attitude of the hearts of these two men as they came to worship God. And there's an important lesson for us here. Work and worship are linked. How they viewed and how they worshiped God is reflected, and this is my fourth point, by their different heart attitudes. There's a second lesson here. The wrong attitude towards God leads towards a wrong attitude towards our fellow man. How we think of God influences how we think of our neighbors. The text tells us that Cain's offer was rejected. Maybe because it was a wrong offering, but certainly because it was offered with the wrong attitude. This rejection led to anger. Cain was angry at what had happened. He was upset and his anger was soon focused on his brother Abel. Anger is the vehicle that temptation so often drives. Temptation was driven into the life of Cain by his anger. His anger was the open door through which the murderous rage entered into him. His anger is born of jealousy and resentment. He's angry at God for rejecting his offering. Then he's angry at his brother because his brother's worship was accepted. And his anger and his brother reflects a jealousy and a resentment. And then his anger led to a desire to harm, to hurt, and to kill. Verse 11-12 tells us that anger affected his ability to lead a normal life. Both before his crime and after it, anger overtook him. He is a settled farmer who is, after judgment, set out on the road as a wanderer. He's a man who builds cities, permanent structures, and now he has to wander the earth. His life is completely disrupted by his anger and his sin. He faced judgment at the hand of God, but his judgment did not lead to repentance. This is the second instance we have in the earliest chapters of Genesis where we see a sin and rebellion against God, a judgment by God, but this time we see that the judgment does not produce repentance. Anger is like a medicine that repels repentance. In contrast, Cain's reaction to the judgment of God with that of his parents, his parents confessed their sin. Cain denied it. He said, I don't even know where my brother is. It's not my job to watch out for him. Adam and Eve, the judgment brought shame. They hid themselves from God. They covered themselves with clothes that they had made. They were ashamed of their sin. Cain boldly speaks to God and argues with him and tells him, I don't know. In the case of Adam and Eve, it led to an admission of sin. They confessed that they had sinned. Cain was simply deflection. When Adam and Eve heard the punishment that they would receive, they repented. God told them that the farming would be hard. The childbirth would be painful. That these things that they had gotten such joy from and such meaning from in their lives very fore the fall now would be difficult and hard. They were ashamed and they repented. Cain argued with God, he said, you're going to make me wander the earth. Don't you know what I'm doing here? I've invented a city. I'm the first person in recorded history to build permanent structures and grow crops in the same place. You can't send me off. Cain's concern was mainly with the severity of the punishment. And the punishment is severe, again, referring to the names. It said he sent from Eden, which means delight, to the land of Nod, which means banishment. He went from the presence of God and the place of the people of God out into the land of banishment. Outwardly Cain and Abel up into this moment were very similar in their lives. Outwardly they had the same religion. Outwardly they practiced the same rituals. Outwardly they worshiped the same God. But in their hearts, they were very different. Inwardly, his heart was filled with jealousy and with anger. He was a hypocrite who worshipped out of a sense of duty, but with no real understanding of the nature of sin and the importance of sacrifice. Out of a sense of duty and not out of a love of God. This story is so powerful. It has literally changed the way we talk. That our language actually has phrases from this story that we hear every week and that we use frequently. It's because it's a universal story. It's a foundational story. It's maybe not the first story, but it's the second story. The first story is the story of Adam and Eve and sin and repentance. It's the story of Cain and Abel. It's the story of worship of God. True worship reflecting a repenting heart which offers sacrifice to God and a heart of jealousy and anger. How does our work inform our worship? How do we respond in worship to God? How do we respond to the judgment of our own sins? How do we respond to conviction of sins with anger and deflection or with repentance and faith? Do we worship God with the gratitude and trust and faith of Abel and his parents? Or do we worship him only outwardly from a sense of duty but without any inner faith? Is our inner attitude one of anger? Or is it one of joy and gratitude? Let us pray. Our Father, as we are reminded of the story of these two brothers here in Genesis, we see from them the difference in how we worship you and how our outward worship really reflects our inward attitude, whether it is one of selfishness and anger or one of repentance and faith. Father, may our outward worship, which seemingly is so similar, may we feel the real heart of repentance and conviction of our own sin, may it be reflected in our outward worship, which is acceptable unto you. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.